Lorenzo Interview: “We never gave up”

The 2015 MotoGP™ World Champion Jorge Lorenzo spoke exclusively to motogp.com about his title-winning season at the recent Valencia test.

The 2015 MotoGP™ season saw Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo lift his third premier class title after an epic season-long battle with his teammate Valentino Rossi. At the recent Valencia test, the Mallorcan spoke exclusively to motogp.com about his charge to the title:

On how he arrived focused and ready at the start of the season:
“We were training so hard from more or less the beginning of 2014 because my condition wasn’t the best. And little by little I was improving and we arrive in 2015 fitter than in 2014 and the bike was more ready than in 2014.”

On how bad luck almost de-railed his championship hopes at the start of the year:
“In Qatar, the thing happened with the helmet where I lost vision in the last laps. In Austin I was weak and I was taking antibiotics. In Argentina we weren’t fast enough all weekend and also we decided to go with the softer tyre…that wasn’t the right decision, which was the hard tyre. So I lost 29 points from the leader of the championship, and I knew I needed to react soon, so in Jerez I just say, “Ok Jorge, just go there and ride in the best way possible without thinking, just trusting your instinct,” and that’s what I did. It worked well and this was the beginning of a very good recovery in the next few races also.”

On the key points of the season:
“There were some points of the Championship that I believe were very difficult. The first one was after Argentina, when I was 29 points behind and then probably the other one is after Misano. You arrive to a track on Wednesday and until Sunday the weather is perfect. Then, just on Sunday, in three races in a row it rains during the race. That is where the points are given…I was a little bit frustrated, yes. But we never gave up and the Misano crash was a key moment because I realised that I just needed to focus on winning.”

On Rossi and the media:
“Valentino has been always very clever speaking to the media and sometimes you don’t have completely the reason, but he expressed his opinions. You have to understand it as best as possible. It’s normal that the relationship gets a little bit tenser (between title rivals) and especially after Sepang, where he expressed his opinion and I expressed my opinion, the situation did get a little bit more tense. I think the past will forget everything and everything in the future will come again into normality.”

His thoughts on #TheGrandFinale:
“Before coming to Valencia I said to my team on Whatsapp “Ok guys, we have to make the best weekend in our lives,” and that’s what we did. I don’t think in the past I have experienced a more difficult or tense situation, with more pressure than I had. I imagined that Valentino was going to finish fourth, so I knew that if Marc or Dani, or both, overtook me I’m going to lose the Championship. So I was praying, “No please, this time don’t try anything”. But I didn’t know that they also have a lot of problems in the front tyre and we won the race, winning the Championship in the last moment. So to have a more emotional, or more dramatic end to the Championship was impossible.”

“I never cried on the bike, in all my life, but this time was special because I knew how many sacrifices and how much I suffered to get it done. When I finished I realise what was going in: where I was or what happened. But every hour that passed I realised that it had been a great Championship, a very hard Championship, one that was very hard to get and finally we did it. Sometimes it seems almost impossible, but we never gave up and we tried everything and finally the effort was worth it.

“When you lose a Championship that you know, you felt that you could win, and finally you lose it in the last moment, you think to yourself that you deserve the title even though you didn’t win. But this happens in all the sports. The only thing that I can say to my favour is that I was the rider with the most victories, five pole positions, two hundred and seventy something laps spent leading the race, compared to just fifty from Valentino, and much more practice session leading, in first position…and then we arrived in Valencia and we made the pole position, the fastest lap of the race and we won the race, so to do anything more to demonstrate that you deserve the world title is difficult.”

On what it is like to win his third premier class title:
“From 2009 to 2015, apart from last season when I finished third, I have always finished the season in first or second and if you are not mentally strong you cannot achieve this kind of consistency. It makes me very proud to spend six or seven years finishing in first or second, but it also makes me very proud to be champion, fighting and competing against three generation of champions. Like Marc (Marquez) who is younger, Casey (Stoner) who is the same age as me, and Valentino (Rossi) who is older. For me these are the three fastest and most talented of the 21st century.”